Full Acer neoTouch review

Pocketnow have published their full review of the Acer neoTouch, previously the Acer F1. The 4 page extravaganza includes many photos, screenshots and 3 videos. At the end of the review Brandon concludes:

OVERALL IMPRESSION The neoTouch S200 is comparable to an inexpensive sports car that has a turbocharged engine but lacks in quality in every other aspect. You know the type. While it’s great that Acer was able to build a Snapdragon chipset into their top of the line device, and while it’s great that they succeeded in making a truly fast device, it’s still an Acer phone. Build quality is low, the software is buggy, and the device lacks certain features and functions that a high end device should have like a good camera and good speakerphone. My advice to you: if you want cheap speed, the neoTouch will make you happy. But if you want a more well-rounded device that exhibits the qualities of a top-tier smartphone, check out the Samsung Omnia II or the upcoming HTC HD2.

BUGS AND WISHES

First and foremost, the neoTouch has poor build quality. The materials used are cheap, and the device even makes creaking sounds if you apply any sort of twisting pressure to the casing. The back battery cover is so scratch-prone that after just 15 minutes in a pocket with no keys, it became covered in surface scratches and swirls. Acer still hasn’t gotten it right with build quality, and you’ll notice it the second you pick up the S200.

The screen, while super sharp and crisp indoors (in fact, it may have better contrast than the Touch HD), turns unreadable outdoors. Because I had to disable screen brightness control (since the polling frequency was WAY too high), when outdoors I had to manually max out the brightness, which, even then, didn’t allow me to see the screen clearly.

Along with poor build quality comes poor software quality. While testing the neoTouch, I came across many weird bugs. For example, when accessing the Preferences screen, I would be taken to an empty page. Or, I would hear the camera sensor click repeatedly, almost as if it were taking photos without the photo application running. None of the bugs I experienced were deal-breakers, but just further indication that Acer needs to do more bug testing before deploying a device.

It’s been a long time since we’ve penalized a device on call quality, but I have to do so with the neoTouch. Not only does the speakerphone distort way too easily, but the normal in-call speaker is always too quiet, and boosting the volume causes it to distort. For the other caller, I was clear, but for me, talking on the neoTouch wasn’t a great experience.

The GPS takes far too long to get a signal. For a cold start, it’d take about 100 seconds to get a fix and with a warm start, the device required 20 seconds to get a signal. This is at least twice as long as other high end smartphones we’ve tested.

And then there are the other issues, none of which are huge problems, but collectively make for an unremarkable experience: there’s no case included, the photo quality is poor and the video quality dull, the screen feels like the mushy resistive touch screens of several years ago, and you can’t natively play your favourite video file formats.